News

De Facto relationships and the Law

What defines a de facto relationship is creating an enormous amount of conflict since changes to the law in late 2008, says Professor Patrick Parkinson, AM.

''The boundaries of the de facto relationship are expanding,'' he says in a Sydney Morning Herald article.

''We are coming across cases where the couple have not actually lived together full-time for two years, and one of them has a home elsewhere, but the courts have said this can constitute a de facto relationship.

''There is no doubt that the definition is wide enough to include a case where a man stays overnight with his mistress for parts of the week over a period of two or more years.''

Professor Parkinson says he is seeing more ''unusual patterns of how people relate'', the majority of whom were reasonably young.